by Jeffrey Essmann

The One who fixed the meter of the tides;
Whose rhymes the whole of nature do inform
And cadences the seasons commandeer;
Who punctuates with stars the nightly skies
And set the stanzas of a summer storm
(Yet freely versed the subatomic sphere),

Within each human heart, a sonnet’s writ
(Though I’ve a friend I swear’s a villanelle)
And bid us honor one another’s lines:
To trust the Poet’s keen creative wit
And never dare to treat as doggerel
The part in us that’s poetry divine. 

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.